


I Have Spread My Dreams At Your Feet (tread softly)

by therewasagirl



Series: BENEATH THESE PAVEMENTS (shells, bones and silence) [3]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: (ships too), Abuse, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, M/M, PTSD, Recovery, Tags to be added as I go
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-30
Updated: 2016-02-02
Packaged: 2018-05-16 20:44:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5840314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therewasagirl/pseuds/therewasagirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And then what happens, after? After all has come back and you remember the origin of every wound that is now a scar - (you feel them happening all at once, flesh sliced open all at once, that’s what happens) - what happens after that? </p><p>If the storm never dies - what happens? How do you live? (a roofless house, in the hauling wind. you live)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Your Mouth (tremulous, breathless, flaming)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's finally here! XD  
> A little warning though - this is very w.i.p. (and im not sure where exactly im going) so it might very well be a bumpy ride. Im not even sure i want this story to be chronological, but i promise i will always put up warnings and explanations beforehand. For now, enjoy! I hope you like ;)

 (Ongoing) Playlist [here](http://8tracks.com/wildcat300690/i-have-spread-my-dreams-at-your-feet-tread-softly-1)

1. 

> “ _Snare of the shine of your teeth,_  
>  _Your provocative laughter,_  
>  _The gloom of your hair;_  
>  _Lure of you, eye and lip;_  
>  _Yearning, yearning,_  
>  _Languor, surrender;_  
>  _Your mouth,  
>  __And madness, madness,  
>  __Tremulous, breathless, flaming,”_
> 
> _Angelina Weld Grimké, “ **El Beso** ”_

For all that Oliver had thought about it ( _and he_ had _thought about it!_ ), in the end, it turns out that it had been wasted time and anxiousness, because when it does happen, it’s very much out of his hands.

It’s all her… and it’s astounding, because it happens so  _easily_!

None of the things he had dreaded are part of it: saying the wrong thing to her, pushing her too far too soon, making her uncomfortable. Freaking her out with the intensity of his feelings, which most of the time Oliver felt he couldn’t control at all.

No, it doesn’t happen that way.

She just walks up to him, on a day that is just like every other day, not a single thing special about it - and kisses him.

Exactly like that.

He’d had no warning at all. Felicity standing close - close enough to breath her in - wasn’t that much of a rarity these days. She’d wanted to go home, wherever that was and she seemed to like sharing the loft with him. ( _he didn’t feel nearly as lonely as he used to in their room, knowing that she was just down the hall_ ). She liked being around him, liked standing close to him. More than once he’s thought she really enjoyed how easily she could fluster him and in those moments of mischievousness, it was all too effortless to forget that anything bad had happened to her at all.

It wasn’t true, of course, but she was getting better at building a life for herself with what she had while fitting in it the pieces of her old one too. ( _stray pieces like him, and all the other people who loved her that she didn’t remember_ ) The mere fact that she  _wanted_  to be there with him was a small miracle in Oliver’s eyes, after everything they had been through.

They’d fallen into a gentle push and pull, as they got reacquainted with each other and it was great. It was slow and mostly tentative, but they were finally both moving in the same direction and Oliver was fine with it.  _More_  than fine, actually! Because though he hadn’t gotten to kiss her since the slip up that one morning at the safe house, sometimes Felicity lingered close, or hugged him tight, or rested her head on his shoulder absentmindedly as she read from her tablet on the couch. And Oliver found himself grateful for the slow pace of their progression because, after missing her for so long, he had a feeling he wouldn’t be able to handle it upright if any of this happened in a rush. His knees would probably give.

And then she kissed him!

She just… walked over to him, leaned down and kissed him… and all Oliver could do – all he  _does_  – is freeze, muscles locked in place as blood rushes in his ears and makes him a bit lightheaded. Which is silly, because her kiss is so simple, so chaste. Just the gentle press of her lips on his. But the  _sensation_  of it – the shocking softness of her lips, the hinted warmth of her mouth… it zaps through him, freezing Oliver into rigidity.

He hasn’t even close his eyes! He’s still staring at her, shock written on his every feature, even once she pulls back for a fraction and meets his look.

He should be embarrassed by how labored his breathing is, by how he can feel every single inch of himself acutely, because all his blood is rushing to the surface of his skin ( _reaching for her in every possible way, even in this_ ). He should be, but he’s too surprised for anything more than looking back at her blankly as she bites her lips a little, cheekbones starting to stain pink.

“I thought… I mean, I’ve been wanting to do that since… a while, and I’ve been overthinking it for days.” Felicity explains haltingly, barely meeting his eyes. ( _Oliver already knows that. The heavy looks behind his back had told him about it. Her flushed cheeks had whispered it sometimes, and the way she kept looking at his lips when he was talking. He hadn’t had the nerve to take her silent language at its word though._ )

Felicity shifts a little on her feet, inches away. “So I though, whatever, just go for it and… yeah…”

A strangled, breathy  _something_  escapes his lips. It was supposed to be a laugh but it sounds more like a choking-sound’s second cousin. He hasn’t blinked yet, which is probably why her restlessness only grows.

Ultimately, Felicity taking a step back is what jumpstarts Oliver’s brain into word-expressible thoughts again. His hands reaches out to stop her before his brain even catches up with any of it.

“I’m sorry, I just…” but he’s at loss for words. How does he describe it?

“Freaked out?” Felicity suggests with an apologetic smile, eager to dismiss the awkwardness but too nervous to be nonchalant about it. She’s wringing her hands now, and in any version of her, that means she’s close to actual distress.

Oliver shakes his head.

“ _No_! No, it’s…” He clears his throat, suddenly realizing his voice doesn’t really sound like his own at all. “You surprised me, that’s all.”

It’s not even the half of it, but it’s enough to start with. Oliver gets up slowly, careful of the blood beating a steady drum beneath his skin wanting to rush him forward, wipes sweaty palms on his thighs and inches closer to her. Close enough to notice her throat working around the suddenly nervous gulp. Her pulse flutters just a bit, right there on her neck where she loves to be kissed.

Her voice wavers a little. “ _Good_  kind of surprise, or…”

His face feels strangely numb but he’s pretty sure he does manage a smile for her this time, no matter how small. “There is no  _or_ , Felicity.”

Oliver has no idea why they’re whispering, but then again they don’t need to talk louder to hear each other for how close they’re standing.

“Oh…” Her lids grow just a little bit heavier and the word sounds drawn out when she speaks it. “Okay.”

He can’t help but dart his tongue out to taste the phantom feeling of her kiss that keeps prickling on his lips. Her eyes follow. The very air around them grows heavier. With every heartbeat, Oliver feels his insides weighting less.

She hasn’t gotten around to wearing lipstick like a uniform yet, and all month since she’s been back Oliver has had to stop himself from obsessing over how weirdly vulnerable she looks without it ( _bare lips had always been an invitation to kiss them rosy again, before_ ). He’d never seen her without bright lips on for literal years, so for a while, seeing her fresh faced first thing in morning used to hurt for how intimate it felt. She seemed to him as naked without her lipstick on, as when she was actually naked. (…  _which is a lie, but it’s as good an approximation as Oliver’s likely to find_ ) It was just so different from what Oliver knew of her, that he came to think of Felicity bare pink lips as proof that what he’d thought for so long as unattainable, was actually reality. It was the first part of their ‘normal’ Oliver got acquainted with and maybe because of that, it became a physical manifestation of intimacy, to him.

…Which was why he couldn’t remember a reason to stop staring at her lips right now. Because she’d kissed him.

 _Felicity_  had kissed him, and he’s still standing there,  _looking_  at her, like a moron!

“I can do better than that.” It’s the first thing Oliver can think of saying. His thoughts are crawling too slowly for anything better.

He brushes his fingers against the back of her hand and Felicity turns her palm, curls her fingers into his just as she turns her face up a bit more, a shallow nod her only answer.

( _the way she’s looking at him is far more eloquent_ )

Oliver can’t help the small smile, even now: they’re so close that she’s going a bit cross-eyed staring at his mouth and it’s so familiar he almost can’t breathe. He catches a wayward dark curl and slips it away from her face, fingertips lingering against the shell of her ear, dipping in her hair just as she tilts her head into his palm with an almost inaudible sigh.

He leans down so slowly, the way to her lips feels infinite, but on that last inch, Felicity is the one to close the gap. His breath catches in his throat this time too, but at least now Oliver knows what is happening.

He presses barely-opened lips on hers and they  _fit_.

Fit as neatly as they learned to with practice. In a shape that feels as familiar as a favorite memory and as real as the immediate nature of breathing. As seamlessly as Felicity’s breath catching and her pushing forward just a little bit, enough to make him want to open her lips with his, wide, and get inside her in _some_  way,  _any_  way! Taste her deep and remember. Make her moan the way she does when he sucks at the tip of her tongue, make her wet…

Instead he gives himself a moment to catch his breath, catch his thoughts ( _he’s barely kissing her and he’s breathless. It’s not even surprising_ ), reign himself in. He chooses to do it without going far: just there, with their lips still touching as her hand travels up his forearm to curls around his bicep, pulling him in again. His palm finds the small of her back at the same time, they move in tandem. He feels the warmth of her hand against his face, just before he chases her breath all the way against her lips.

And this time when Felicity curls her fingers at the back of his neck, carefulness leaves it’s place to the warm wetness of her tongue against his bottom lip, a teasing reminder. ‘ _Open your mouth for me Oliver_ ’. The words feel more tangible than mere memory; they’re a warm whisper at the back of his neck, waking shivers down his spine, tightening the muscles low on belly. He gasps at the feeling, holds her tighter, melting them close just as he opens for her.

It’s not really certain, in the haziness of the moment, from whom that hum comes from. Whether from the back of her neck as Felicity pushes herself on her tiptoes, to have more of him; or from deep in his chest as he holds on to the back of her head to keep her there, everything growing warm and soft as he remember what it means to overwhelm his senses with  _Felicity_  again.

( _it’s both_.)

He tilts his head the other side, the tip of his nose brushing against her cheek as he does, slates their mouths together on a different angle. Doesn’t even try to take control of the kiss, just enjoys the high of it. Curls his tongue with hers and lets joy frizz out on his every nerve ending, effervescent and dizzying, loving her hands on him, their travels from his arms, his face, his chest, everything in between and back again. Bends forward into her even further, so she can reach him more easily. Crawls his hand up her back the way she likes: slow, ‘ _slow and firm, right there, yes’_ , feeling the shape of her spine arching against his palm, the utter  _delight_  of her moan in his mouth and her shiver against his chest.

They break apart, breathing hard and close, and is it any wonder, really, that the room is spinning? The world has lost its edges, everything is as soft as Felicity’s warm, wet lips feathering against his in a not-quite-kiss, the electric tremors of that ghost touch a prelude to a deeper thrill. He’s feeling as if he’s a breath away from bursting apart like a flock of a thousand golden birds, but Oliver doesn’t care and the thought makes him smile. He keeps not caring as he presses that smile against her lips again and tries to make a kiss out of it ( _they used to be so good at that. he could hardly ever kiss her without wanting to smile_ ).

Both her arms are around his neck now. She’s as hot and soft as ever against him, every last inch of her, and  _now_  is the time to relearn her mouth again. He does; slow and just right, cradling her face. Her full-body shiver ripples against him, her hips jerking forward in that way that whispers ‘ _I need you inside me now_ ’.

Desire spikes so suddenly that it feels like a kick to the head, a thousand foot drop, and Oliver almost folds around her, whiting out at the edges of his vision at the too-sudden high.

He pulls away, gulping down air desperately.

He needs to sit down; needs to feel like something more than thin strings and a wish are that that are holding him up. He needs his hands to stop shaking, at  _least_! But Felicity’s hot breath is fanning his face, one of her fine-boned hand slides up from his neck to cradle the back of his head like she wants nothing to ever happen to him and it pulls at every thread of tenderness he has all at once, longing hitting him hard square in the chest, dulling the edge and making it burn deeper at the same time. He bends his head, touches his forehead to hers, trying to find even ground again… and catches sight of the flush that chases down her neck and her chest. ( _he knows exactly how far down it goes_.)

Oliver dip his head and kisses her pulse because he doesn’t want her to see his fogged eyes, but also because he wants to reacquaint himself with the long graceful line of her throat, with the way she leans her head against his cheek and her shoulder comes up to frame him in place when he finds her favorite spot with his teeth and tongue, and  _sucks_. She moans his name, voice thick and hot, right in his ear ( _the touch of her voice dances ‘round the back of his neck and dips all the way down to curl around his dick, lighting fire along the way_ ) and it’s all Oliver can do not to fill his hands with her ass and squeeze her against him.

When her fingers tunnel into his short hair to pull him back up to her mouth again, Oliver goes happily.

She pushes against his chest with both hands and Oliver knows what she wants. He sits back down on the couch, eyes on her as if she might just disappear if he so much as blinks. Felicity follows him without missing a beat… and then stops, just as she leans in to brace one knee close to his thigh.

“Is…” she clears her throat and tries again. “Is this okay?”

Nothing much registers beyond the look on her face, that flutter of uncertainty at the edges of want. The concern that pushes aside her lust, reminding desire of something far more tender that dwells just beneath it.

Oliver swallows down his heart, nods. He tightens his hold on her hands, pulls her forward a bit.

( _all this time he’s been careful not to push her too hard that he’s sometimes missed how Felicity is just as careful not to pull from him too much. It’s like they’ve both forgotten that whatever one needs the other gives and they’re learning it all over again._ )

The only reaction Felicity has left anymore when he’s staring at her with the full force of his sincerity, is to take a long breath and absorb it. So she closes her eyes takes a breath, takes a moment. When she opens them again, he is looking up at her as if he is trying to read all the thoughts beneath her hair. The expression on his face makes something in tighten and release, like a spring, somewhere beneath her diaphragm.

She knows what it is to be looked at like prey. This, the look in his eyes, is the complete opposite of that and for all truth’s sake, Felicity has to admit that she hadn’t thought anything like it was possible, until she sees proof of it right there on his face. He looks at her like she’s a person and a place all at once and he wants to belong there… and that warmth that has been sunning her insides from the moment she gathered her nerve, said ‘ _fuck it_ ’ and kissed him despite all the doubts trying to bully her out of, tightens and liquefies, flooding her veins. She feels the heat of it flushing her skin, filling her lungs and travelling down, down, down…

She bends her knees, hands on his shoulders not because she needs to steady herself but because the sooner she touches him the better, and there she is, in his lap, his arms around her tight, chest to chest. Mouth to mouth.

 _God_ , the way he kisses… it tugs forward something in her that feels a lot like despair, but with a gentler bite. He pushes her straight past  _want_ , shoves her directly into  _need_ mercilessly; every touch, every  _brush_  of him straightening the tiny hair on her body to attention as her heart beats against her ribs hard enough to bruise.

She talks back; learns that she  _can_ , because he’s fluent in the language of her body and she’s far too happy about it to worry about why. ‘Why’ and what happened before doesn’t matter. He’s here now. He’s with her as she is – and it’s not just him binding his time. It’s not. She’s past that. the reason she even dared kiss him in the first place was because she finally had the courage to admit it to herself: he’s not the one that’s waiting for something. She is.

Not anymore.

‘ _Touch me._ ’ She curls the words around her tongue and then his. Snivels on his lap trying to get close, enjoys the way his fingers dig harder on her hips. She’s stubborn enough to match his carefulness and outdo him. That’s exactly what she’s saying when she plants her hands on his pecks ( _seeing is believing, but feeling_ all that _beneath her palms is something else_!) and leverages her weight on him, pushing him back against the plush cushions and hovering half an inch over his face, her hair all around them, a dark nuisance. ( _she’s really regretting not putting it up in_ some _way_ )

When he smiles at her like a sunbeam, Felicity bites his lower lip without much gentleness and tightens her thighs around his hips, traps between their mouths that sound that climbs up from deep in his throat and makes her insides and her heartbeat flutter at the same beat.

‘ _Touch me. You can. I want you to._ ’

She almost bites through her lip when she feels both his hands squeezing her ass through her jeans hard enough to leave fingerprints behind. It brings them close enough to feel everything and her pulse skyrockets so quickly, Felicity thinks she might just pass out. And it’s not really at the delicious pressure of him hard between her legs where she throbs for it ( _though that makes her toes curls in the best way she can remember_ ), but because she can _feel_ how much he wants her in the tightness of his grip, see all the different shades of it written on his face. His eyes are bright and unfocused. High on lust is a good look on him… god, _so good_. The best… all Felicity can do is kiss him like she wants to devour him whole.

Oh, she will! She’s going to do exactly that…

But she wants to hear him make  _that sound_  again and because she feels so free, that makes her bold, so she sneaks a hand between them and palms him through his pants.

His whole body arches upwards in a wave, moving her too as if she weights nothing where she’s sitting on him and Felicity has to brace against his shoulders with a surprised breath. Oliver tips his head forward, tries to muffle his groan against her neck, so Felicity licks a path along his jawline just to feel his stubble against her tongue and sucks his earlobe into her mouth. He grunts something that sounds a lot like her name as he lets go of her ass and wraps both arms around her back, sitting up and holding on tight until there is nothing she can do but hold him back.

( _Nothing is steady or clean cut around him. Nothing stays that way. One moment the very air is blistering hot between them and the next she just wants to hold him. More often than not she can’t’ tell the difference as her heart grows heavy. More often than not, it’s both._ )

She probably likes the way he’s panting against her neck, his breath training like a fever-touch against her skin and waking goodpumps, as much as she likes the way he makes her feel.

Probably…

“Felicity…”

She leans back, the iron hold he had around her suddenly just a warm press of his arms on her back, and they’re kissing again. It’s a wonder they went on so long without it, actually, because they’re so _good_ at it! The more careless they are about it, the better it gets. He’s almost vibrating beneath her again, and if his mouth is her favorite thing, his hands are close second, because he doesn’t stop touching her: her waist, her neck, her hair, palming both her breasts at once and almost falling back against the couch again with a groan at the soft give of them beneath her T-shirt. His hands shake when he frames her face again and this time his kiss is soft and warm. Warm enough to convince her she is going to melt right into him, like butter on a hot scone.

She can’t stop kissing him! Until she can’t breathe and has to lean back, until she’s shaking for how much she wants and how tightly she’s containing it. Felicity’s a mess of nerves and barely-there bones when she finally can’t stand it and scrambles off him. She manages mostly without stumbling and pulls him along ( _the momentary loss painted on his face when she moves away, makes her want to jump him his arms and stay there forever_ ). But Oliver catches on pretty quickly and she could swear that’s laugh she hears from him when she practically runs them to her room. ( _she doesn’t need to turn to sense his disappointment that they’re not going to his –_ theirs! _– but Felicity doesn’t really have the patience to explain to him that there are condoms in her room and knowing him, there might very well not be any in his_ ).

She might have been self-conscious in another lifetime, but then and there, Felicity just can’t wait to get rid of her clothes - and it shows, because she’s pulling her T-shirt up and off before she even crosses the threshold of her room. She tosses it away and turns just in time to see Oliver swallow down heavily, blue eyes raking over her with an intensity that makes her teeth rattle and her toes curl.

Her breath shakes on the way out when he takes  hold of her shoulders, sliding his palms up to her face and her hair… and only then does she dare admit that maybe her impatience is trying to mask her apprehension, just a little bit. Maybe she is shaking because she’s high on him and can’t wait to fuck him into oblivion, but also because she is all nerves and wanting, and just a little bit scared. Maybe that’s why she’s hardly pauses to take a full breath before she takes two fistfuls of his soft blouse and pulls him down for a kiss that comes almost as soon as she asks for it. ( _open mouthed and artless; careless passion that is beyond sophistication and speaks of abandon. The filthiest kiss she’s managed to get from him yet. It could almost be a promise._ )

But then again she’s also ready to float right out of her own skin she’ so happy. And that’s enough to make her brave.

That, and the fact that she wants him enough to tear his clothes off him with her bare hands if he doesn’t get naked soon enough.

And here is where Felicity learns that breathless need must make her clumsy, because she just can’t seem to convince her fingers to cooperate and rid Oliver of his Henley. So she compromises for sneaking her hands beneath it and flattening her palms against his back just to feel him. He’s so  _warm,_ but it shocks her into shivering harder, her heart bouncing between her breastbone and spine so hard it might just make her swing a little, like in the Saturday morning cartoons.

She used to get so scared when this happened. When these overwhelming feelings for him that echoed of tenderness but ran so much deeper, made their way through her veins and wrapped her heart up tight enough to change its rhythm. But she’s not afraid of it anymore; doesn’t fight it. She has a name for it too, now, though Felicity hasn’t told him that yet.

She doubts he’d believe her anyway.

She’s a trembling mess and trying to hide it when she feels Oliver’s arms wrapping her up tight. He’s laying soft kisses on the corner of her mouth, her cheek, her forehead and swaying them a little from foot to foot, his hands seeping gentle warmth back into her.

“It’s ok.” He says close to her ear and holds her tighter. “Felicity, it’s ok. We don’t…”

She nips that one in the bud.

“It’s not that.”

And maybe the way the words fall so quickly form her mouth convinces him, despite the fact that her voice still shakes a little. He brushes her hair out of her face with both hands, his eyes so blue they remind her of the hottest part of a flame.

“It’s not that, I promise. I want you, I want this. I do.” That makes his lips curl up at the edges just a little bit. “I just… I get a bit overwhelmed, sometimes.”

It’s the best she can do, without actually saying the words.

Oliver nods, and she can barely feel his hands around her face for how gently he’s touching her. His eyes are so kind that it makes her throat clog a little, the burning promise of tears tingling on the bridge of her nose.

“Okay. We can take it slow…”

“I don’t want  _slow_.” Felicity says the word as if she’s offended by it ( _though some time in the future, she’s going to want it slow and sweet too. But not right now_ ) Slow is the last thing she wants, actually. “I want you inside me, now, so off with the clothes please.”

The words fall out of her mouth and Felicity blinks when she realizes, a tiny bit late, that that might not be the best thing to say, considering. But then Oliver lets out a long, drawn out breath and he’s kissing her again like there is no tomorrow, so maybe her mouth isn’t capable of as much ruining as her secret fears give it credit for.

She’s a moment away from climbing all over him, when Oliver picks her up by her ass and walks them to the bed. Felicity links her ankles at the small of his back and feels laughter tickle its way up her chest, because she could just hang there in his arms and it wouldn’t make a difference to him, would it? ‘ _You’re ridiculous._ ’ She wants to say it, but bites it back. She does however make a mental note as she kisses his temple and his cheek and ear and anywhere her lips can reach: he seems to like her ass almost as much as she likes… pretty much every part of him.

He sits them down and then turns them both until her back is against the cool duvet, without breaking his hold on her and this time Felicity can’t help it – neither the chuckle, the little shiver or the words.

“Such a show off.”

But it’s a murmur against his smiling lips, just as they melt against hers again. She feels the whole weight of him pressing against her for the first time, every hard ridge of him impressing itself on her skin, making her feel the shape of his body and reminding her of her own in whole new ways.

_Oh…_

He sits up on his knees, right between her open legs ( _her hands chase after him; his abs, up and down his thighs just to see the look that gets her_ ) and takes off his shirt in one fluid motion, faster than she’s ever seen him do anything. Felicity only has a short moment to appreciate the incredible view before lowers himself down again. The press of their bare skin together makes her arch against him in one long motion, the warmth of him a call impossible to resist.

They kiss and kiss and it never ends. One long embrace of tangled limbs and molded mouths, so fast together that it’s hard to tall anymore with one of them is shaking harder.

It doesn’t matter.

The feel of his hands all over her matters. How he licks along the side of her breast as he kneads the other in his hand, _that_ matters, because she can’t decide which feels better, his rough palms, the scratch of his stubble or the soft kisses that follow. How it makes her thighs quake when he sucks her nipple between his lips, pressing it hard between his tongue and the roof of his mouth, digging his chin on the soft underside – that matters most. Pleasure can make you sob, she finds, and Felicity throws her head back and lets the feeling out, oblivious and uncaring at the sounds tumbling off her lips ( _she didn’t even know she was capable of sounding like that until he pulled it out of her_ ).

She can’t touch him as much as she likes, can’t do to him much of anything because that carefulness of his is gone from before, and Oliver presses onto her hard and hungry, refusing to move away enough for her hands to push between them.

All she can do is feel.

Feel his hands all over her, his mouth, the brush of his chest against her breasts and the pressure, delightful and aching, of him hard between her legs.

She fails at patience and scrambles to unbutton his pants. They prove too stubborn – or her hands too shaky - so Felicity shifts to her own, undoes the button and shoves them off along with her underwear in one single motion, heart pounding in her ears to a rhythm that is starting to become familiar. Halfway there, Oliver helps and she’s naked before she’s taken a full breath.

And that’s when he slows. Slows to a crawl as he sits up and props her foot on his shoulder, starts kissing along her calves, the back of her knees, her thighs, the press of his lips almost shockingly soft after the scratch of his beard, almost as if it were on purpose. He just keeps doing it with her other leg and at some point Felicity wishes he had longer hair so she could just grab him and shove his face between her legs. The slow progression of his wide palms along the inside of her thighs, up and down, thumbs brushing against where she needs it most – enough to make her arch for his touch but never hard enough to satisfy it - makes her think she just might melt through the bed and be done with it.

That, or combust.

He lingers and kisses, palms spread wide open on her skin to touch as much of her as he can. Beneath the fact that it turns her on like crazy, there is a whole ocean of emotion that resurfaces along the trail of every kiss he presses on her skin, heavy with emotion, and Felicity feels her eyes fog over.

She can’t take this. She can’t…

She uses her hands to leverage her weight and move lower, wraps her thighs high around his torso and almost manages to move him over her.

Oliver meets her eyes… and his look, unfocused and heavy, flushed cheeks and wet, parted lips, it makes her shake with the need to be filled.

There’s a thousand things she could say.

_Stop teasing_

_I’m losing it_

_I need you so much it’s hurting_

_Fuck me_

“Oliver…”

She almost sobs around his name, everything right there between the lines, filled to bursting with emotion, and he hears it. He breathes in sharply like it surprises him, crawls over her so fast, like he can’t reach her lips soon enough.

He kisses like the world is ending and everything depends on whatever they make between their bodies. Maybe it does.

Maybe the room really is spinning…

_Who cares?_

Felicity wraps her arms tight around his torso, pulling him close, just as he sneaks his beneath her back. And she’s so happy his pants are almost undone because she gets to dip her hands into them and push them carefully lower, sink her fingers into his firm ass and pull him close until she feels him hot and hard where she’s most sensitive and  _shakes_  with need so badly, her teeth clank together. But the look on his face as he shudders, that groan that rumbles in his chest as he breaks the kiss with a panting, shivery breath, face scrunched up in pleasure as he rocks against her – _that_ is even better. Even through half closed eyes and in the darkening twilight, he’s the most beautiful thing Felicity remembers seeing.

He moves in gentle waves, the hot length of him rubbing against her clit in just the right way and for a breath or two it’s enough, but then it’s not. Not even close. It makes her dizzy,  those tiny bursts of sensation without real direction, until she is sure she won’t be able to stand it for one more moment.

She wants more. She wants _him_!

Felicity reaches up, trying to get to her nightstand. Oliver’s eyes follows her movement after a moment, his brow quirking, the sidetracked confusion so adorable on his flushed face she wants to kiss him.

“Condoms.” She murmurs, stunned at how breathless she sounds, pressing her lips against the nearest part of him instead - his shoulder.

It takes him a blink or two to get her meaning, but when he does, he lifts up so easily and Felicity reminded, as she follows the ripple of sinewy muscle beneath his skin, ( _he stumbles as he takes his pants off all the way and Felicity bites her lip not to laugh, hands tingling to touch him again_ ) that she's seen this man take down a room full of trained assailants and that he fights like a machine, but touches her with nothing but kindness. She remembers though, and lifts up on her elbows to touch him, to kiss any part of him she can reach first… and if it just so happens to be his chest, who can blame her.

She pushes gently at him, and thinks that this time like all the other times, she's telegraphing what she wants clearly enough for him to be able to read the silence, but he doesn’t. Instead of laying down on his back where she wants him, where she can most easily get at him, Oliver does the opposite - and so fast that Felicity is left staring at the ceiling and his smiling face before she realizes he flipped them over.

She raises one single unimpressed eyebrow at him, but it doesn’t work quite as well as she might like, considering she's panting and her hands are groping his shoulders and arms without conscious thought.

Conscious and rational is the last thing he wants for her though. He starts stringing kisses from her mouth to her chin and breasts to lower, and Felicity thinks he definitely stole her idea. She keeps thinking that as he dips his tongue in her bellybutton and her back lifts off the bed, arching up like the pulled sting of a bow.

She never known one can laugh and moan at the same time, but as prickly kisses awake sensation that travels from the soles of her feet all the way up to her ribcage, she finds out that it’s very well possible. Fun fucking doesn’t sound like a thing but apparently it is. Before Felicity can remark on that in any way however, his hot mouth is on her, tongue licking a devastating path from her entrance to her clit and Felicity's spine liquefies.

She falls back on that bed like her strings were just cut, with a sharp yelp that is both surprise and electricity.

He takes it slow, and it's the best torture. She doesn’t even have to wonder how he knows just what she likes, where to lick and just for how long. How deep she would like his fingers and how many, how fast. When to slow down, when to be relentless and when to press his prickly chin against her ( _she screams, and thinks she might be coming but his soft lips and warm tongue bring her back from the edge, for a little while longer. It makes her groan long and deep, but it’s not regret_ )… because she likes it both ways, apparently, or maybe he’s just that good. She doesn’t know if it’s her body he's reading, or if he knows how to make her brain short out by heart, or it it’s both. All Felicity knows is that her thighs are shaking around his ears and his hands are all over her: kneading her ass, her breasts, her waist, inside her just when it's right, making her lose control of her body as pleasure slices its way into her every nerve, lighting it on fire.

Felicity scrambles for something to hold on to - one hand fists in the duvet so hard she can't feel her fingers. With the other she reaches down blindly, wanting to grab at any part of him she can reach, because her spine is tingling and she's moving with him now, unable to help it…

She feels her hand enveloped in his, their fingers linking together low on her belly. Felicity looks down, sees him sprawled on that bed like a man who's not planning on going anywhere for a while, eating her out just the way she likes… and finds his eyes on her, dark and intense. They trap her there, as his tongue sneaks out and licks against her deliberately slow and…

_Oh!_

Her head falls back, his name on her lips, helpless, shoulders curling forward as she bites her lip and shakes. Oh, she shakes apart… wave after wave of delight starting where she can feel his lips him smirking around her clit ( _he flicks his tongue one last time, flattens it against her and a violent shiver crawls up her spine, dipping her even deeper into warmth_ ), traveling upwards, sneaking between every fiber she’s made of and filling the spaces in between with hot starbursts.

She feels like she lingers in oblivion forever, the waves of it carrying her higher each time before it fades and she can feel the tingling of her body again.

Felicity floats back down gently, cradled by his hands that keep soothing up and down her thighs, her waist, the kisses he keeps leaving behind as he crawls up her body. She feels floaty enough that she has to laugh a little as she covers her face with shaking hands.

Yup, those are actual dancing lights still sparkling at the edges of her vision.

He's kissing her neck now and she wants to hug him, but her bones feel traitorously wobbly so she settles for kissing him deep and long, touching trembling fingers to his face.

“Oh wow…”

It’s as eloquent as she’ll get. Her brain is still buzzing with happy white noise, which is a nice difference.

Oliver just hums against her lips. She'd call him out on how smug he looks but she's still shivering from the proof that it's earned, so it's a moot point. Besides, she’d rather kiss him some more instead, pressing herself close to every part of him she can reach. ( _he taste different, which is a whole new thrill and so unexpectedly intimate_ ) It’s slow and languid, because it’s how she feels, but against her boneless satisfaction, Oliver is the opposite.

Once she can feel her body again and it starts complying when she tells it to move, Felicity gropes the bedding for the condom he got out earlier. She almost fist-bumps in the air happily when she feels the plastic wrapper against her fingertips, a victorious whispered ' _yes!_ ' escaping her, before she can bite her lip, embarrassed.

Oliver’s chuckle makes his chest rumble against hers, tickling when he presses it, warm against her collarbone. He just holds her tighter, his forearms having sneaked their way under her back a while ago. He keeps moving her every which way he likes, as if she's his favorite teddy bear and Felicity has to admit she… kinda likes it. ( _it makes her melt really, that whisper that goes unspoken in his embrace, that little tinge of desperation and longing that has nothing to do with lust and everything to do with time. It's silent, but not unfelt. It passes from his skin to hers, same as a kiss, infusing every touch._ )

She'd happily open the condom and roll in on him, but when she tries the first time it slips through her fingers. That makes her laugh more.

She does reach for him first though. The sensation of his cock in her hand is surprising. That desperate little noise at the back of Oliver’s throat when she fingers her fingers and experimental squeeze brings heart crawling up her spine again. He's big enough to knock her pulse up a little, so hard he twitches in her hand when she moves her thumb over his head, but so shockingly soft too.

Oliver leans in close and asks her if she's not too sensitive for this so soon. Felicity just blinks at him.

“I'm fine.” She manages, thighs rubbing together. She's tingling - in anticipation and something… something else. Like an echo growing in her hollow chest, of that edge of desperation painted so clearly on Oliver's face, in his straining body.

She doesn’t really understand it until she feels him pushing inside her ever so slowly. It's as if she's only now in her own body and it's reminding her of things she used to know, but the whispers are coming back at her in a foreign language. It should be strange that Oliver’s face is easier to read than her own feelings, but it’s not. He’s so open and so close that his emotions are impossible to escape from. The way his pupils blow out, and his mouth falls open in shallow pants. The way he holds on to her and how he strains above her, tension coiling everywhere their bodies touch. That look in his eyes, like a bleeding wound, everything she's ever thought lurked beneath the surface, suddenly so starkly apparent right there at her fingertips, begging to be taken.

Felicity can hardly stand it, but she can’t bear to look away either. She won't.

This is meant to be felt.

Their hips meet and Oliver groans ever so softly, closing his eyes with the look of straining concentration on his face. She’s not that much better: trying to breathe having forgotten she has lungs is no small feat.  She feels full and tingling and so very overwhelmed she has to blink fast against the sudden flood of feelings trying to pry apart her ribs.

She reaches for his face with her hand as if to anchor herself to him, closes her legs around him to get even closer. It shifts him, just a little bit and draws a small moan out of both of them. He feels hot and heavy inside her and suddenly Felicity appreciates all his gentleness more than she could ever say it in words because though having him inside her is the farthest thing from pain she's known, the potential is there, if he moves the wrong way.

Oliver opens his eyes and there’s hardly any blue left in them for how dark they seem. Little beads of sweat dot his temples but he almost manages to sound steady.

“Ok?”

Felicity nods, takes a long breath and tilts her lips up. She curls her toes at the back of his thighs when he gives in and kisses her, pulls at the wiry hair there and soothes the sole of her foot down again.

It's an invitation to move. He does.

He rests his forehead on hers, uses his forearms to leverage his own weight, and it's great. It's fantastic and makes a sheen of sweat break out all over her, but he's too careful. He's the gentle to her groping hands, controlled and steady to her shaking legs; his painfully slow movements in and out of her stroking a fire that she feels everywhere, from deep inside where he is buried to all the places they are touching and its both too much and not enough at the same time.

Felicity grasps at him, hands slipping over sweat-slicked skin, blunt nails leaving trails of faint red down the small of his back as he moves. She scratches her nails along his ass and it makes him shiver but doesn’t move any faster. He just kisses her deeper, comes back into her just a little bit harder, ripping a strangled moan out of her. He does it again, and again, and it’s a gathering storm she has no purchase against.

They slip over each other easily, little bursts of pleasure from where her breasts rub against his chest. She brings one leg up higher to goad him, pushes back against him, but it only makes Oliver dig his fingers around her thigh, shifting his weight even more over her. They’re panting, faces close together as he touches his fingertips to her face… and it all falls into place around her just as he almost pulls all the way out and comes back into her again. Between a sensory overload and delirium tainting all her thoughts, this starts to make sense, and she can feel the reverence of Oliver’s every touch as it brushes up against her, soft as a butterfly’s wings, even while he fucks.

She lets it wash over her, eyes close and mouth open in a silent pant. Takes it all in and wraps her arms around him, following his maddening pace, adjusting to it. Greedy for his every sound and all the little grunts he makes every time he moves, like he can’t stand it.

She can’t help sucking his thumb into her mouth though, the next time he traces her lips, that she can’t do. It’s worth the way his face crumbles, can feel him twitching deep inside her, moving just a little bit harshly now.

Felicity palms the back of his neck, biting her lip but unable to stop the words falling out. ‘ _Yes. Yes. Again._ ’ And again, faster, until she is all liquid heat and mouthing else. Until he’s all she can feel apart from the mounting catastrophe in her body. It feels like disaster, it feels like she’ll break apart.

It comes like release. Starting at where they’re together, moving up, along her spine and numb legs, curling her shoulders in and making her cry out. The whole word stopping, high and sharp in that one moment. And then she falls apart… and Oliver chases her right after.

And there are two moments she would like to be chained to: when she comes so hard that she feels she’ll never be able to walk without feeling the world shifting beneath her feet again… and that moment when he does too, and she feels it, how taught he is one moment and how the spring releases the next, his groan in her ear, that not so gentle bite in her neck as he shakes and shakes.

She chases his shivers up his spine and brings him down the way he did before. In quiet and in kisses, through a world that has fallen silent beyond the walls of this one room.

And when he finally looks up and reaches for her face, she pulls him in. This time kissing him feels familiar in a whole new way.

* * *

 

AN: I have - yet again - proved i am disastrous at summaries... please be patient with me. I will probably change it soon. 


	2. i say your name and,

(Ongoing) Playlist [here](http://8tracks.com/wildcat300690/i-have-spread-my-dreams-at-your-feet-tread-softly-1)

> _“Lie down with me, and hold me, tight. Touch me. Be  
>  _ _with me. Feel with me. Feel me to do right.”_
> 
> _\- May Swenson_

They’re laying on their sides at the foot of their bed, quiet and close. She propped her knee on his hip after she’d invited his thigh between her legs ( _the way she always used to_ ) and Oliver is reminded of how much he loves it like this. How astoundingly soft the skin of the inside of her thigh feels, how her warmth is just there, close enough to gently press against, if he wanted. And he does. He’s always liked feeling her that close, from time to time. Feeling every inch of her along every inch of himself, just for the sake of contact… until it was for the sake of something else. ( _he remembers she used to get herself going like that. that sometimes she’d whisper in his ear ‘fuck me harder’ because she loved it that way too and loved the way it completely undid him. that it didn't seem to matter that she wouldn't come with him because she’d get herself off against his thigh after and it was the hottest thing Oliver had ever laid his eyes on_ )

She keeps running the sole of her foot up and down his calf ( _some things dont change. they just dont_ ) and everything, every single thing about this moment keeps inflating the bubbles of contentment in his chest until they press against the inside of his skin and melt there, like endless ripples.

At one point, Oliver slips his arm under her neck, lets her use his bicep as a pillow as his hand roams her back. Felicity makes a small pout at the change, mumbles something about him being ‘too hard to be more comfortable than the pillow’, before rolling her eyes at herself and poking his chest chen he chuckles. She’s doing her own kind of exploring, fingertips following his scars and then setting into gentle travels of their own without any kind of map. ( _she likes touching him. She hasn’t stopped touching him since she kissed him hours ago_ ) Her stray hair tickle him a little, but not enough to move. He just brushes it away, wraps the length of it around his hand.

It’s long enough that he can wrap it around his hand twice, now. It’s been awhile since… it’s been awhile.

He notices every change in her, not because it makes her different from who she used to be, but because they all hold meanings. She’s told him some things, but the pain… that he has to search between the lines for. She doesn't like talking about it… It feels like deja vu. ( _he notices everything. every reaction, every gesture. he catalogues them in his mind, neatly; adjusts accordingly_ )

Her body feels different against him, ( _his would feel different to her too, if she remembered_ ) but she’s been gaining weight steadily the last month, looking healthier every day. Her hands feel different too. She has a couple of new callouses and a scar at the inside of her right hand, where her skin looks so pale and delicate, it feels like an unforgivable sin to mar it. But someone did anyway and that discolored line tells the story. So do the multiple thin lines along her forearms ( _blades? no, too shallow for that. deep scratches? why? who?_ ) There’s a V-shaped scar along her collarbone that wasn’t there before and she’d flinched so hard when his fingers trailed along her neck earlier, that his heart had fallen all the way to the floor. ( _Her wide eyes, panic -_ fear _\- echoing there loudly for a moment as she stared at him, looking as startled as Oliver felt._

_‘I’m sorry.’ He couldn't get the words out fast enough. Felt his palms burn at his own carelessness, his heart squeezing with phantom pain. If she hadn’t caught hold of his wrists, Oliver would have backed away completely._

_‘No, it’s ok. I… I just…’ But words eluded her._

_‘I won’t.’ Oliver hurried. ‘I won’t touch your neck again, I’m sorry.’_

_She gulped, her breathing shallow for the wrong reasons, anxiousness starting to creep at her. ‘Kisses are fine. I really like those_.’

_It made it hard to breathe, how eager to make it right she’d sounded. Oliver knew that tone - had used it himself so many times, when he’d thought he’d give anything - everything - to make up for all the pieces he lacked and the ways he was fractured. Because she deserved so much better. Because he’d thought maybe if he didn’t, she’d rightly get tired. That he wouldn't be worth all the effort if surely must be to love him. That she’d leave._

_‘Okay.’ He wrapped his arms around her tight, just to prove her wrong; kissed every inch of her he could get at, every way he knew she loved. ‘Okay’_ ) He burns to know the stories behind every single bruise that has already faded, but keeps the words in. It’s not difficult - not as much as he’d sometimes thought it would be. Instead of questions, when he’s faced with marks of her pain, her name becomes a litany in his head.

_(Felicity, Felicity, Felic-)_

Before, Felicity had never overtly asked him about his own scars. She was always full of questions and she rarely minced her thoughts for the sake of just anyone’s comfort, but when it came to his pain, she’d always let him find Oliver own tempo. He ended up telling her about all the different ways he was hurt as he told her about other things.

‘ _I met this guy once who was really fond of knives. He gave me this one to remember him by_.

Oliver used to carry a certain amount of uncomfortable self-consciousness about the ways his body betrayed his story, but by the time he had had the chance to actually end up in a bed with Felicity Smoak, he hadn’t even spared a thought for that. That first time, and every other time after it, whether it was fucking hard or loving slow, in Felicity’s arms Oliver had never once felt inadequate. He knew her well enough to be utterly safe in the knowledge that she never saw him as damaged goods, not physically anyway. ( _she doesn't have that luxury now. it’s why he’d kissed her with such heavy intent, before; every touch spelling out promises no her skin. ‘I’m yours.’ ‘you’re my hero.’ ‘I love you.’ Over and over. Every truth he had to give.)_

Whether he agreed with her or not, that was a different story. He had eventually made his peace with the fact that he didn’t have to agree with her opinion of him. Just respect it.

Now however, Oliver expects questions. He’d seen her face the first time she saw him shirtless and though he’d had to bite his lip not to smile too wide at the way her mouth had fallen open in a lovely round ‘O’, he’d also seen the way she’d blinked it away almost immediately. How her eyes sharpened as her they flitted over his body, lingering on the damage he carried around like a manifesto. She hasn’t asked yet, but he expects her to.  When Felicity is curious about something, she asks. It happens rarely - Felicity believes in doing her own work and figuring things for herself. But when there is something that she misses, she asks in the plainest way possible.

‘ _I don’t understand this.’_

_‘Explain it to me again.’_

_‘But where, what, why?_ ’

And Oliver knows she _is_ curious. She didn’t linger the way he had, before, on every corner of her body that had changed, but…

( _Oh, before… his memories flutter over him like a warm touch, soothing and electrifying at once. The feel of her, her taste, her smell, her kisses. Her impatience… his name on her lips, every single sound out of her mouth and how hard she held on to him when she came._

_It’s not a dream, or long gone memory. It just happened! He still has the taste of her on his lips. He could dip down and eat her out right now and she’d let him. She’d enjoy it. She’s here, they’re together._

_He could kiss her if he wanted. He wants, so he does._

_Felicity arches into him with a low hum and Oliver feels the words swirl around in his head, melting together. I love you, I loveyou, Iloveyou…Ilov-)_

She curves her fingers along his jaw, pushes at him a bit.

“Yeah ok, as… good as you are at that, I am too hungry to have sex right now.”

He chuckles, presses closer to her just a little bit. Enough to push her back against the bed and hover over her.

He pitches his voice low. “Are you _sure_? I can be very persuasive when i want to be.”

Felicity snorts. It would scratch at his ego a bit, if he didn't hear how her heart thumped beneath his fingers “Im sure you can.”

He fact that her words and up a bit breather than she’d anticipated proves his point. Her hand presses against his shoulder blades to bring him closer. He feels her laugh against his lips where they are pressed against her throat.

“You know, eventually, we are going to have to get out of this bed.”

Oliver hums non-committedly. “Eventually.”

She chuckles again, silent against the skin of his arm where she mufles it. She turns all the way into him, her thighs falling open for him just as her lips do. There couldn't be a softer invitation.

She’s not quite so hurried now. There is calmness to her kiss. She doesn't feel like she has to run for it anymore, as if he might change his mind halfway. He didn’t… and he probably won’t, will he?

The thought makes her relax into the soft bed even more. It makes her smile into their kiss, breaking it. It’s probably his stubbornness that tells him they can still make a kiss out of their smiles. Felicity is not so sure, but she is oh so very willing to try it out.

It’s a strange place she’s in, where she’s both flying and growing heavy with emotion. She opens her eyes to look at him, take him in. It should feel stranger to be filled to the brim with emotions for someone who you know so little.

She knows a lot of facts about him. Figures from a page. But she knows what she’s seen too. That he’s so brave, kind. And that he loves so deeply, but not always well. ( _does anyone?_ ) It’s in everything he seems to do - the proof of it all. Felicity knows these things. And knows that there is so much more to him too. it’s there in her head… she just needs to unlock it. ( _She’d try, if she weren’t so afraid of what it would mean if she failed_ )

Her hands on his back trace the mark that has been burned into his skin and a long breath falls out of her lips.

How is it possible to have been hurt so many times, in so many ways, and still be capable of…

Still be _capable_.

"You were hurt pretty bad, huh?" Her voice is soft and low.

And even though he’s been expecting this moment, Oliver doesn’t know what to say. It’s equal parts bewildering and terrifying, watching as her eyes become shiny with emotion.

His hand goes to her cheek immediately. “I’m ok now, Felicity.”

Because he is. Not all of his hurts burn the same way now. He’s learned to live with some and to look beyond others. But the look on her face, that sharp sting of hurt that reflects in her eyes, does not abade and Oliver thinks maybe he doesn't understand.

“I know. I…” She sucks in a shuddering breath, her smile trying to hand-wave the feelings in her eyes away, but she can’t quite pull it off.

She fluffs, almost as if she’s irritated with her own emotions. Felicity never did like not being in charge of her own head. So it’s not really a surprise to Oliver when she leverages her hips and flips him over, much more easily than she was ever able to before. ( _though the ease with which she moves him definitely does surprise him_ ) His back hits the mattress with a small huff that becomes a laugh on the way out. She’s smiling cheekily at him from above, thighs bracketing his hips, hovering over him.

“Ooh, didn’t know I could do that, did you?” She teases, settling more comfortably right over him, smile widening into a smirk when she feels him react to her warmth.

“It… did surprise me, yes.”

She nips gently at his bottom lip. Mumbles his words back at him. “I can do better.” but this time they come at him as both a promise and a dare.

He hufs a laugh but it becomes muffled soon enough as she pushes her body against his and kisses him in the kind of way that steals his breath.

She’s trying to distract him from the fact that she’s tittering at the edge of feelings too big for her body again, but Oliver doesn't mind. He frames her face with his hands and watches the heated look in her eyes melt into something softer as she smoothes out her emotions, accepts them. She leans down to press her lips to his, and Oliver is reminded of the way she used to kiss sometimes, when all she wanted was to smother him in love and touch him like he was born for nothing but tenderness.

“It’s ok.” A whispered litany between one kiss and another. Persuasion of gentlest order. ( _no more hurting. You’re ok too. We’ll get better_ )

She melts into it slowly. Gentle hands that touch his face and hold him close. The barest pressure of her fingertips makes him tilt her head and she slants their mouths together the way she does their bodies, no quarter given.

And Oliver, he knows this. He’s lived in it for months. And it doesn’t matter, he thinks as he brushes her hair back from her face with both hands, framing her head to kiss her deeper, pull her closer even when there’s nowhere closer to go. It doesn’t matter that she can’t tell the difference, yet. That she doesn’t have a name for this yet.  _He_  does. He knows what it feels like to be loved by Felicity Smoak, and this is it.

She’ll learn to make peace with her feelings eventually, because there is nothing Felicity can’t do ( _and it’s ok because truth be told it took her a while the first time too_ .  _they move at different times, but it’s always towards each other_ ). But for now, this is as good as it gets, and he sits up and pulls her flush against him, finds his home in her warmth, slow and steady, and so breathtakingly familiar, he breathes a broken sigh against her panting mouth and thinks ‘ _This is it. I wish for nothing. I am happy._ ’

+

She sits on the counter, legs dangling off it, coffee cup warm in her hand and feeling oddly naked in only his shirt ( _maybe cause her ass is getting cold_ ), but comfortably too. ( _that's not in small part to the way he keeps looking at him_ because _she's in his shirt. oh, yeah, she's noticed. and he knows she's noticed. she can read it at the corner of his smile, right there by that tiny mole on his lips. it makes her feel warm, she likes it_.) She watches him move around, making something as simple as pancakes - and bacon because apparently that's her thing, and as he mixes the ingredients in one big bowl, she thinks, ‘wow, I am seeing who this person is for the first time, aren’t I?’

Because this is the first time that he looks so relaxed. His shoulders are not bunched in tight, tension curling them into a hard line; his smile is free, his eyes bright.

HIVE has hundreds of hours of surveillance on him ( _if anyone ever asks her if she's seen every last one of them, she'd lie like hell and say no!_ ), but in their records there isn’t even a glimpse of the man that is walking around barefoot in the kitchen with her now.

"What?" he asks, offering her a strawberry ( _she takes a bite, licks her lips after he kisses the juice off of them, and then pops what’s left off the fruit in his own mouth_ )

"HIVE has had surveillance on you for months. Did you know?"

That stops him. His frown is slight, but it changes the look on his face.

"No." Oliver says carefully.

"They do. And just now, I was thinking of how, despite all that effort, none of them had any idea who you were.” Felicity shrugs. “It's a comforting thought. That no matter how hard Darhk looked, he can’t see you. Just like he couldn’t see me."

He trains those blue eyes on her, his expression open and so readable he might just have telegraphed his thoughts in her head.

He's such a strange man. Sometimes she still catches herself wondering why he doesn't hide.

But then again, she knows the answer to that: he doesn’t have to.

"I think in the end, that was the only reason I was able to get away. He didn’t see me, so he didn’t know me. He didn’t really know how to hurt me."

His expression flickers quickly, and she can tell the exact moment pain stabs him, before he can breathe again. This time Felicity doesn’t look away.

His words come softly. Almost a whisper. "He knew exactly how to hurt me, though."

Felicity gives him a smile this time, pulls him between her legs. He follows so easily. It makes her feel welcome every time she touches him.

It makes her feel right inside her own skin, because she can own her wants and needs now fully.

"No, he didn’t. Because you’re still here, and so am I. He never understood anything about us at all.”

 _Us_.

She uses those kinds of words now. Encompassing words. Words that place her in situations she wasn too afraid to trust just a short few weeks ago. Oliver knows that something has changed. He’s not above asking her what it was but he also has the feeling she will tell him.

( _She does - about 30 minutes later_ )

She hops on one of the barstools of the kitchen isle and he puts the plate full of pancakes in front of her. She eats with her hands, swaying a little in place the way she used to when she was particularly enjoying what she was eating and feeling playful.

She’s watching him over the soft rim of her third pancake when the words spill out.

“I’m going to try reversing the programing of the nanites in my head tomorrow.”

She says it as if it’s nothing. as if it’s normal and they’ve been talking about it since day one.

Oliver puts his fork down, looks at her at her intently.

“You are?”

Felicity nods, her ‘ _no big deal, we’re all fine here, how are you_ ’ face on as she takes a big gulp of orange juice from her glass.

But something doesn't add up and as Oliver puts the pieces together, Felicity snags a piece of bacon and, face angled skyward, folds it whole into her mouth. Absently, Oliver realizes that she really had been famished.

… though she always eats like a little dinosaur these days ( _he’s always the one that puts more food in her vicinity for exactly that reason. that and the fact that he wants her to never be denied anything she wants ever_.)

“I thought you said you weren’t sure you could do that.”

He’s starting to suspect she might have lied to him, that time. What he now wants to know is why.

There is always a why with her. She just never used to hide it before.

Felicity looks at him and with her mouth half-full of pancakes and bacon and a ponytail askew high up her head, she manages to look like a kid caught with her hand in the cookie-jar.

“I lied.” She confesses, looking like she she wishes she could feel a bit more sorry about it than she actually does. “I just… I wasn’t sure…”

Oliver doesn't understand her meaning at all, but he recognises the shift in her. Sees it happen, as she goes from being sorry about the lie, to feeling uncertain about the reason for it.

He waits her out.

“I didn’t know if it would work. And I… I wanted to be sure, first, that I could stay here even if it didn’t.”

His frown deepens.

“Felicity…”

“I like it here.” He hurries to explain. And once she gets going, she can’t seem to stop. “I _really_ like my life here. I want to stay. With you…” she adds that almost shyly and Oliver feels his palms itch to touch her , but he doesn't. He doesn't want to interrupt.

“I thought I wouldn't want to, before, but I do. And I  needed to know… I wanted to be sure that i had a place here. That everyone wasn't just biding their time around me until I was ‘ _fixed’_.”  She rolls her eyes, fingers making little brackets in the air around that word, as if it’s offensive. Beneath it, Oliver can see the very real fear of exactly this happening. “Because maybe I never weill, and then what?”

Oliver has known for awhile that she thought that. He thought they were past it, once she started acclimating to her life and stopped looking at him and everyone else with suspicious eyes. But apparently he’d been wrong. ( _in a corner of his mind, a tiny voice reminds him that there are other things rooted deep in her that will not change. Like the fact that she will rather expect people to leave, than hope they will stay. After all, her default is calculating risks._ )

“So what changed you mind?” he asks, after he clears his throat twice.

Someone, somewhere, might laugh at how ridiculous they both are. That after holding on to each other so tight, finding each other through darkness and blindness and misery, they are still being afraid the other will one day open their eyes, see sense, and leave.

Someone else that doesn't have quite as many missing pieces ( _gaping holes inside themselves big enough to fall into_ ) might laugh at that thought.

Oliver almost chokes on it.

Felicity… Felicity just shrugs and it’s the most helpless he’s seen her in awhile.

“I just… I just did. I don’t know.”

Oliver lets out a long, deliberate breath and steps off the stool, closes the distance between them in one step.

“I’m not waiting for anything.” he says, deliberate and careful, the whole measure of his sincerity infused in those words.

She nods. “I know.”

But she doesn't. “I have nothing i need to wait for. You’re right here.”

She bites her lip just a little. Nods again.

“Yeah. I am.”

+

It’s the little things.

Her seven button blouse – three of them undone. Her coming back from the ladies room a bit after him, shirt buttoned higher, make up perfect again where before the bright pink had streaked across her mouth, his mouth, his throat, her cheek; hair in a ponytail because undone it would only tell of how many times he ran his hands through it.

It’s the secret things.Mouth skyward, her breasts heaving close to his face as she moves, chasing her pleasure, grasping for his. It’s knowing: in this world, love has no color and yet never doubting how deeply his body is stained by hers[[1]](https://www.tumblr.com/edit/138273201267#_ftn1). It’s the sight of her in the dark, little breathes lifting her body. Eyes bright and grasping fingers; it's dreaming in bright colors.

It’s all those times in the very beginning. How for weeks, no matter what he put in his mouth – it wasn’t what he tasted. It was _her_ he remembered, her smooth heat. It’s a special kind of exhaustion, exuberance, from not being able to keep their hands off each other. Every time feeling like the first time and last one too, and how it made for the both of the fucking like they couldn’t believe it, like their life depends on it, for months, until they felt safe in life again.

It’s happening now, as it happened then: that feeling of it not mattering how many times he’s been inside her just in the past few hours; he still misses it.

She looks at him the way she’s always looked at him. He looks back thinks he can taste her tongue in his mouth when she laughs. He think he wants to be as close to her as her wet skirt to her thighs[[2]](https://www.tumblr.com/edit/138273201267#_ftn2) that time she persuaded him into breaking and entering and jumped into the someone else’s pool in the middle of the night.

It’s her bare ass on the countertop as he does the dishes, her collarbones peaking from the neckline of your shirt and the way she curls her toes. It’s the way she catches his eye and _knows_. And then it becomes his wet hands along her legs, high up as he pulls her close, right at the edge. Her heavy lids and well-kissed lips, the red batches of his beard along her thighs.

He kisses gently this time. Soothing the insides of her thighs, finding impossible softness with his lips until she’s shaking, toes curling.

It’s the both of them on the closest couch, his head thrown back, each breath coming out of his mouth a soft groan, fingers digging on her hips. It’s her face close to his face as she rides him in slow waves, that white shirt undone and but still on her, hanging off one shoulder as she pulls at every last thread that holds him together, inch by inch. Ever so slow. Until he can’t stand it but hides his face between her breasts, because he can’t stand being anywhere else.

It’s laying there for hours, dozing sideways on a couch too small for the both of them, until she wakes with a start and they move to the bed. He doesn’t know what time it is anymore – the night is too deep. Neither bothers with lights.

She’s naked and tiptoeing across the cold floor ‘ _Cold, cold, cold!_ ’ until she jumps on your his with a laugh.

She sleeps for a while longer. He don’t. He watches the line of her back, her face half sunken into the pillow she’s hugging. He doesn’t touch. She wakes up immediately when he touches.

Her eyes blink awake, bleary and hazy, when the morning is still grey. It’s only then that he reaches for her again, to do what he’s been wanting to for hours. Moves his hands down her sides, drapes himself on her back and presses bristling kisses along her ribs the way she likes, her shoulder-blades, her spine. A slow seduction, heavy kisses loaded with emotion. One by one he lays them on her skin, pressing his lips with intent so that they sink in and feels her shiver awake beneath him, pushing against him. He tells her that it doesn’t have to go anywhere. That he just wants to _there…_ and she curls her hand with his and brings it to her lips, wiggles her ass a bit to find a comfortable spot and widens her legs to make space for him between them.

He moves up just a little but and because he knows what she _likes_ , he leaves wet kisses on the back of her neck. She shivers, like rippling water beneath him

‘Yes… Oh, yes…’

She’s still sleepy, warm and soft and like this, with his chest pressing against her back, it’s a favorite. He licks a strip up her neck, bury your face there same as he eases inside her gently ( _gently, mindful of how sensitive she is, of how soft. Careful_ ) and just lingers, for one long moment.

He breathes her in. The human warmth of her skin and the traces of his.

She reminds him of… she reminds you of nobody.

She reminds him home.

He’s not so good with ideas, he prefers reality. But words like _love_ and _family_ , he connects them to people. And he remembers that one morning when they were somewhere along the coast of Bali, walking down the street. Remember her by his side, the touch of her hand in his and how for no reason at all he’d stopped and turn to look at her – red nosed from the sun, all the freckles on her face like a constellation… and he’d known right in that moment that if there was ever a meaning to forever, she would be it. That she was someone he would love for the rest of his life, always the same way he felt he loved her in that moment.

He’d realized it right there in the middle of the street, on a hot day in Bali, for no particular reason, and it stopped his breath.

He’d never told her that, but he thinks the way he kissed her might have. He thinks she knew, maybe. That the knowledge took shape and weight in her eyes when he pressed her on their bed that night, wordless and careful, and kissed her like it was his everything she held in her hands. He doesn’t’ don’t know if she ever understood, but something changed between you that night. Something fell into place for him, imperceptibly so, but still shifting his whole world at a new angle: certainty. Of the kind he hadn’t known in a long time.

She looks at him through heavy lidded eyes over her shoulder and smiles the kind of smile that punches straight through his chest. Love would pour out of him like from a wound, if such a thing were possible. She looks at him the way nobody else looks at him and he feels boneless, helpless, completely defenseless. Hers from the inside out, in such a way that it wouldn’t surprise him if one day people found out her name was written along the lining of all his internal organs.

Maybe she sees it all in his face then, he doesn’t know. But she whispers ‘wait’ and he stops. She turns in his arms to face him, wraps her legs around him and her arms around him and this moment… this moment is so heavy, he can barely breathe. He try to give back some of this overwhelming feeling, share it between the two of them. She opens up for it like a ripe fruit and he sinks in, his teeth, his tongue, his cock, everything inside her.

Staggering intensity… he can’t breathe, and he can’t move - there is no farther place to go, but she holds him steady, framing his face with her small hands, raining kisses all over him, wherever her lips can reach.

‘It’s ok.’

He know it is. This is more than ok. This is him, alive. This is _Felicity_ , alive. This is wanting to be with her in every which way.  A translation through his body of months of grief that are now loosening along the seams of his skin and he don’t know how to deal with it in any other way but this. He doesn’t know how to forget fear, other than this. How to prove life…

‘Stop being so careful’

She whispers the words as she holds him tight and he thinks, he really shouldn’t, but she snags that thought right out of your eyes, tightens around you in a ripple making him almost fold around her, the strength of his arms giving out. He moves. He can’t help but move, tight little circles that repay her in kind. She bites her lip, trapping a chuckle, nails bite little crescent moons on his ass.

‘Let go.’

He does. He starts to, because she wants him to. Because she wants his need and his everything and it feels like coming home.

It feels the closest to sacred he will ever get..

He move inside her and her breath catches. He finds a shiver, chases it. Kisses her slow and deep as she holds on tight and he think ‘ _I am gone to you. I was made for you_.’ and it makes him feel better. It makes him feel right.

He’s all over her, every way he can be, fingers entwined, holding on tight.

_Yes._

Her breathless voice in his ear, the feel of her around you, hot enough to make him wish he could melt. Overwhelming enough that she touches his neck and he feels her down his back. She hugs his middle, brings him closer, and his thighs twitch, phantom sensation traveling there too. He lets more of his weight settle on her, his skin a sweat-slicked slide against hers, and it’s her hot mouth all over him, a thousand wet kisses everywhere they touch.

_Yes_

Her name on his lips, the only prayer he’s known for months.

_I was born to be inside you_

She flutters tight around him, moans loud in his ear; her fingers grasping at the back of his neck, pulling him closer and he don’t know if he said it to her, or just rolled the thought in his head the way he’d rolling her nipple in his mouth. It doesn’t matter. He reads her body’s code as clearly as if she’d been whispering it his ear. She’s so close and so is he. Thoughts slow down, grow sluggish as words start take on shades and sensations burst along his skin like fireworks.

_Felicity…_

He can’t catch a full breath anymore, but he catches her lower lip between his. Circles both their arms around her head. She lets go of his fingers, slides her hands up his arms instead, pulls him close.

_Harder._

He shivers. His pulse stutters as the spring in your lower back grows tighter. It always gets to him, how she makes obscene want sound divine. He obliges, grasps her ass, feels it give softly in his palm as she plants her feet on the bed to fuck you harder. He muffles his groan right at her neck, just beneath her ear as his shoulders shake. Their skin slapping together is the best music he’s ever listened to, apart from her throaty moans, the ‘ _yesss-s_ ’ that sibyl between her teeth, drawn out like nails along his spine, chasing bursts of pleasure.

Numbness starts – he can’t tell – if it’s at the tip of his toes and higher, or where he’s buried inside her and deeper. he feels it coiling low in your belly, heavy. It numbs, it scorches. He can’t feel anything for how good _this_ feels

Nothing makes sense, but he fill his fist with her hair ( _gentle. Gentle even in oblivion. Because she is precious to him and he is mindful of it even when his mind is gone_ …) and he doesn’t even realize how loud he is and how close.

Lost is what he is .

Found between her legs. In her eyes. In the searing kiss she sucks hard on his throat.

_Yes, to everything. All of it._

His forehead hidden in her neck, where he can breathe her at her sweetest and take her in his lungs. His hold on his own body is threading loose, with every hard thrust that it comes back in her body. The only places he recognizes anymore are the ones he can feel her touch on. Everything else is absence and oblivion, the way she calls his name undoing him from the inside out.

He fall right in her hands, in her body, in her mouth, curl all around her.

 _This is dying_.

It rips from him his last breath and it comes out as her name against her throat, cutting down to the very last nerve of him, slicing him open. He can’t breathe, he can’t see as the pressure at the base of his spine erupts along his every nerve, blinding him to the whole world but her and how she feels, his hipbones stuttering against the back of her thighs. Delicious violence that just keeps going, shaking, restrain forgotten… he’s lost…

Lost as the moment keeps stretching on like honey from a jar, shivers rattling his bones loose, letting warmth fill even the farthest corners of his being. Lost as he falls down back into his body as slowly as a feather gliding through air. 

Warm fingers trailing up his spine remind him he has a body, but he’s not sure if she’s really touching him, or if he just feels her there the way he feels her everywhere. He shakes with it, regardless. Trembles as waves of warmth keep washing over him, riptides through the core of him, still.

But he comes back to himself, his body remembering the kiss of her body, starting to feel it as real again. One inch at a time.

Her kisses come through first, the touch of her hands mapping your back, so gentle.

The world stopped a moment ago but his heart stops right now.

The sound of her heartbeat filters through and he turn his head a little to the side from where it was buried in her neck; kisses her gently on that spot on her shoulder where before he sunk his teeth in.

He can’t stop shivering, his head is spinning, but she holds him tighter, wipes her hands down his wet cheeks, as he does the same for her. They lay side by side, close, still shaken by each other. Touching without stopping, shaky hands on each other’s skin, just to prove the other is there. He’s still reeling, and his kisses show it, but it doesn’t stop him from stringing them wherever he can reach. Her cheek, her lips, her chin. Her hand that hasn’t stopped touching his face, that small dip at the base of her throat, – he kisses her there too, it’s his favorite. He collects favorites on her body, one by one.

Familiar, finally, is the way her heartbeat pounds against his forehead when he lays his head down. It calls him back into calm again. It’s the first thing in months that can.

+

She is setting up the program, going over the specs that SiomOne went over this morning. John sits in one of the chairs close to her workstation, silently watching her work while Oliver occupies the other.

John had been very quiet and very serious as Felicity explained to him what she was going to do. She’d put his hands on her shoulders, enveloping them, and plainly told her that if the risk was too high, she should do it. ‘We already lost you once. Nothing is worth going through that again. We’ll make new memories, Felicity.’ And it just kept surprising her that the most astounding thing about the man was not his seemingly infinite kindness, but the plain way he could let you know you mattered and make you believe it. Because once she’d said ‘I’m sure.’ He’d pulled her in for a tight hug, and then let her work, keeping silent vigil close by.

Caitlin has already set up the medbay for her and Ray is making the final adjustments to the nanites while Felicity chest their software and coding for the 37th time. ( _52nd, if you count all the check and test runs that SimOne has run in the past month._ ) Felicity knows they are all waiting for her to be ready, but she takes it slow and easy despite that; despite the agitation lurking just an inch above the surface too. She pushes all feelings away adamantly, focuses on the practical work instead and the lines of code, without missing a simple digit.

There is no room for error here. This is her life on the line, and no matter how willing she is to risk it for this work they do on the streets of their city, her risks have always been calculated.

Tommy hovers in the back but his voice reaches her clear as a bell.

“Are you sure about this?”

She sighs, looks at him from over her glasses, without straightening from her work.

“Is that doubt I hear, Merlyn?”

He rolls his eyes at her. He hates it when she calls her by his last name - hates what she implies with it because they both know that, depending on her tone, she might as well be calling him ‘ _motherfucker_ ’ when she says his father’s name.

Tommy gives her an unimpressed look and Felicity smirks at him without blinking a single eyelash. it’s more of a tease this time. Not quite the insult. Still, she watches him fold his arms over his chest under her eyes. it makes her wonder which tick he’s trying to hide from  her this time… and why.

Because she is sure it’s _her_ he’s hiding from. The others don’t know him well enough to read him, but she’s spent whole months in such close proximity to him that sometimes she thinks she’s sick of seeing his face.

“You don’t know if this is going to work. For all _you_ know, this could kill you.”

Oliver straightens a little in his chair, eyes snapping from Tommy to her face, wide and surprised. Felicity sees it from the corner of her eye, but doesn't turn, choosing instead to level Merlyn with a glare sharp enough to part flesh from bone cleanly.

“Nice try, _Merlyn_.” she narrows her eyes at him. “You’ve been breaking my balls all week about this so let’s cut through the bullshit: is there something in particular you don't want me remembering?”

Because fair or not, it’s a legitimate question. And no, Felicity is not against twisting the knife in the wound. Nor is she above shoving his own guilt in the face. But also because she’s tired of this game of theirs. Tired of tiptoeing around him and his insecurities he tries to mask behind trouble-stirring words.

He talks like it’s surgery most of the time. Most of the time, Felicity is sure she hates him for it.

 _Spit it the fuck out_.

But Tommy stays silent. He knows he doesn’t have to talk: the damage is already done.

_Fucking asshole!_

If he hadn't saved her life… if she didn't know what it was he went through and how much he was hurt, she could so easily go to a place where hate for him came without remorse, and stay there.

“Felicity…”

She takes a deep breath and then turns to Oliver, eyes immediately softening their edge.

She has to tell him the truth. The kind of truth he’d believe.

“It _could_ , yes. It’s a possibility.” She admits, not without a little bitterness. “Same as a bus hitting me when i cross the street could kill me. Same as any stray shot, any night, could kill you. The chances are the same.”

He tilts his head at her, knowing exactly what she means and still unimpressed with it. “It’s not the same thing though.”

“If I’ve made a mistake, this could end badly, yes. But we both know I don’t make those kind of mistakes. And even if i had, Ray would have spotted it. And if he’d missed, SimOne would have fixed it.” She’s gone through this over and over, she’s prepared.

Oliver stands up, comes close to her, hands framing her face in a way that Felicity is coming to appreciate because it’s one of the gestures that seems to bring her feelings for him closest to the surface.

“You don't have to do this. You know that, right?” he asks her softly.

He’s been saying that ever since the beginning. They all have: Oliver, John, Laurel, Sara, Thea. Telling her a hundred different ways, never with the same words. That she’s welcome in their life for exactly who she is. And Oliver… Oliver took a long time last night to show her how very true that was for him. His every touch spoke of it. And this time, Felicity believes him.

But it’s not about that anymore.

“I know.” She says softly. But the determination sparks in her eyes and Oliver knows that she’s not giving an inch. “I _want_ to do this. I want my life back. … I want _my_ life back.”

No one had the right to take it from her and even if Oliver hadn’t been in her life, even if all she’d wanted once she was free of Darhk and HIVE, was to run as far away and start over… even then she would be doing this.

It’s a matter of principle.

Some entitled asshole felt that he could mold her to a shape of his choosing. Felt that he had the right to take things from her she refused giving. Felicity will never let that stand.

Fuck Damian Darhk and his pretentious name. Fuck Malcolm Merlyn too. Fuck them both.

And no, it’s not enough that they are rooting in a cage of her choosing. She makes her own choices and she wants to annihilate every remnant of their gross touch on her life, in any way she can.

Oliver nods just a little bit. The worry in his eyes does not abate, but in truth, Felicity didn't expect it to.

“Okay. All systems are operational. Ray, how are you on the nanites?”

Palmer doesn't even look up or talk at all, he just lifts his thumb up and brings his hands back on the keyboard. Felicity rolls her eyes at him. She could walk infront of him naked in times like that and he wouldn't notice her at all.

Felicity starts walking toward the med table. Caitlin hands her the syringe with the nanites. Felicity weights it in her hands carefully.

It’s ridiculous how such small a thing could do so much damage.

“I’m going to keep you under for a day or two, because we don't know how much it will hurt, but it might be a lot, so…”

Felicity nods absently. “Right. Yeah, let's do that.”

She’s not the biggest fan of hurting, to be honest. She has no idea how Oliver and Sara have such a high threshold for it. ( _she knows how Tommy does it, but she refuses to think about that_ )

Oliver’s hand wraps around hers and she looks up. No, she’s not changing her mind. She’s not going to let him help her with this. She doesn't know him as much as she feels she does, but she does know that he has the very bad tendency to blame himself for everything. If he weren’t so kind, she would call him self-centered.

She takes a breath, and then faster than anyone thinks she will, she stabs herself with that safety needle, flooding her systems with the nanites that will decode the ones already in her system and free her memory.

Oliver flinches and then catches her right when her knees start to wobble.

Good job on the sedative, she thinks absently as the world starts  swimming. she tries to say Oliver’s name but probably doesn't manage farther than a murmur.

Felicity folds in his arms and Oliver holds her to him for a long breath before he sets her gently on the med table so that Caitlin can hook her up to the monitors. Her heartbeat is steady, her brain’s wavelength all normal. She could be asleep.

None of it explains why his heart can’t stop pounding.

Eventually, it doesn’t go as smoothly as Felicity thought it would. She stays in that unnaturally peaceful sleep for eight days.

When she does wake, the first thing she does is try to kill them all.

 

[1] Izumi Shikibu

[2] Yamabe no Akahito

 


End file.
